I Can Jump Puddles (1955)

This was one of our obligatory high school reads. My best friend's mother was crippled with polio and during the 60's in Sydney you would still see kids in primary schools in calipers. An inspiring book. ( )

Alan Marshall contracted polio as a young child. What he also had was excellent observational skills and the ability to put this down on paper. In this first boy in a series of three he tells of growing up in a small town in the countryside in Victoria. He relies on his father and a few other adults as role models who instilled in him independence, and an attitude that there was nothing wrong with him; he was just as different from others as two other people are different from each other.
The book gives a great picture of the tough life that people in rural Australia endured in the 1920s. ( )

I can jump puddles is the autobiographical account of the author as a boy, more particularly after he gets sick and has to deal with his handicaps, and the punishing regime and treatments he has to go through and face every day.

http://freesf.strandedinoz.com/wordpress/2012/04/i-can-jump-puddles-alan-marshal...

He also has to learn to relate and get along with his able-bodied peers, and earn their respect. ( )

I read this when I was quite young, and revisited it again recently.

What an inspiring and well-written story!

Life was so different in those times. The chances of a young boy with such a physical challenge being allowed to grow and develop without constraints are almost unimaginable these days. I can't help but think the changes are not for the better. ( )